Yes, it’s ornamental cherry time again. Sitting at the breakfast table with a coffee, I watch two male Blackbirds perch on the garden table and chairs under the tree. One flies up, hovers for an instant, lands, and can be seen to have a small black cherry in its propped-open beak. It swallows, looks up, repeats the cycle.

There is a Blackbird nest exactly in the middle of the ornamental cherry, atop the end of a cut branch; it is not very well hidden from anyone walking in the garden, nor very far from night-prowling cats.

Less welcome are the Wood Pigeons that noisily flap into the tree’s slim branches, finding a wobbly perch before greedily guzzling the tiny cherries, the first fruits of the year. If they become numerous they will threaten to devastate the crop of real edible cherries from my ‘Stella’ tree. Stella is a good deep red variety, not as dark and bitter as Morello (but a great deal sweeter), though rather on the late side. The pigeons, of course, find it delicious. I always had to cover the tree with nets, until last year when there was hardly a pigeon or even Blackbird to be seen near the tree: I suspect a bird-killer cat used to lurk on the shed roof at night and stalk its avian prey.

Out the front, another bird-only cherry grows in the pavement. It is risky to park the car beneath it, the birds – mainly starlings – spotting roof and windows with rich purple-red stains made gritty and corrosive with white powdery uric acid.